Overview

After a highly productive 2006 expedition to the Marañon River in northern Peru, I became intrigued by the loricariid catfish genus Chaetostoma.

This genus is abundant and diverse in Andean streams and we had difficulty identifying many of its species. No one at that time was conducting a large-scale, systematic revision of this species-rich and widespread genus, but such a project was needed to better understand Andean river ecology, which I was also interested in. In 2011, I received a National Science Foundation grant to generate a molecular phylogeny and taxonomic revision of Chaetostoma. This grant, plus a supplemental grant from the Coypu Foundation, provided funds to survey Andean piedmont habitats in Ecuador. Six species of Chaetostoma had been described from Ecuador in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but since many of the original type specimens from this period were in poor condition, I would need to revisit their type localities to clearly understand what they were, how they differed from other species, and how to highlight these differences for a broad audience.

        In 2012, I led an expedition to inventory Andean piedmont habitats of Ecuador both for my systematic work on Chaetostoma and for a number of other ongoing collaborations. Joining me on this expedition were fellow ichthyologists Ramiro Barriga (Curator of Fishes at the Museum of the Escuela Politecnica Nacional in Quito; MEPN), Nathan Lovejoy (electric fish biologist at the University of Toronto Scarborough; UTSC), Hernán López-Fernández (Curator of Fishes at the Royal Ontario Museum; ROM), Jessica Arbour and Frances Hauser (PhD students of Hernán's at the University of Toronto), Katie Roach and Andrew Jackson (ecologists from the University of Quebec Trois Riviere), Donald Taphorn (retired Curator of Fishes at MCNG), my friend the artist David Brooks, and Veronica (Vero) Román (a biology student in Quito).

        Together, we surveyed all but the northernmost rivers draining the Amazonian and Pacific slopes of the Andes Mountains in Ecuador. We collected fresh specimens from the type localities of all Chaetostoma species that had been described from Ecuador, and discovered a couple new species in the process. We also collected thousands of tissues, many of which were quickly sequenced by me for an ongoing molecular phylogenetic study of Chaetostoma and its relatives. Voucher specimens collected during this trip are now cataloged at the ROM and MEPN (field number prefix ECU12), where they will benefit ichthyological research for many years to come. Published papers that have already benefited from collections and observations made during this trip include the following:

• Lujan, N.K., V. Meza-Vargas, V. Astudillo-Clavijo, R. Barriga-Salazar and H. López-Fernández. 2015. Multilocus molecular phylogeny for Chaetostoma Clade genera and species with a review of Chaetostoma (Siluriformes: Loricariidae) from the central Andes. Copeia 103:664–701.

• Lujan, N.K., V. Meza-Vargas and R. Barriga-Salazar. 2015. Two new Chaetostoma group (Loricariidae: Hypostominae) sister genera from opposite sides of the Andes Mountains in Ecuador, with the description of one new species. Copeia 103:651–663.

• Lujan, N.K., J. Armbruster, N. Lovejoy and H. López-Fernández. 2015. Multilocus molecular phylogeny of the Loricariidae (Pisces: Siluriformes) with a focus on subfamily Hypostominae. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 82A:269–288.

• Arbour, J.H., R.E. Barriga Salazar and H. López-Fernández. 2014. A new species of Bujurquina (Teleostei: Cichlidae) from the Río Danta, Ecuador, with a key to the species of the genus. Copeia 2014:79-86.